He had almost reached her when Percy, who was slightly behind him, shouted something and pulled him back by the elbow. A dark object swished past Gabe's head, missing him by inches. It rose higher, then paused in the air as if held by the wind. As it swung back, Percy's torchlight caught it and Gabe saw it was the swing that was suspended from a lower branch of the oak.
As they watched, one of its rusty chains snapped, spoiling the swing's momentum. The edge of the loose seat was now low enough to be snagged by the ground, the broken part of the chain acting as an anchor. The swing dangled there, stirred by the wind but unable to rise any more.
'Thanks again, Perce.' Gabe realized that the swing might well have brained him had it connected with his head. He wondered if that was what had happened to the unconscious woman lying at their feet.
She was moving slightly, lifting her head and shoulders off the ground. Gabe dropped down on both knees beside her while Percy kept the light on her face. She groaned and her head bowed as if she were going to rest it on the grass again.
Gently, he touched her shoulder.
'What happened to you?' he asked, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the gale.
She turned her face towards him and was blinded by the light. She raised a shaking hand to shield her eyes.
'Who—who are you?' she asked so quietly Gabe hardly caught the words.
He saw that it was Lili Peel. Her hair was dark because it was rain-soaked and flattened against her scalp and face. He inched closer.
'It's Gabe Caleigh, Lili. Eve's husband, remember?'
As if relieved, she closed her eyes for a second or two. When she opened them again they were wide with shock.
'I ran away,' she managed to say, and Gabe had to move even closer to understand. Their faces were only inches apart. 'I left them there in the house. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I was afraid. I thought he was going to kill me.'
She attempted to sit up, but it was too soon. She rocked forward and looked as if she were about to pass out again. Gabe quickly helped her to turn round, his arm lifting her at the back. Lili wiped her damp face with the flat of her hand and mud was smeared over her cheeks and nose.
Gabe kept his arm around her, supporting her, and Percy played the light on them both.
'Who was going to kill you, Lili?' Gabe urged. 'Has anything happened to my wife and daughters? Quickly, you gotta tell me.'
He was about to leave her there and get into the house fast, but she gripped his wrist.
'Oh God, I know what happened to the children,' she said breathlessly, ignoring his question. 'He murdered them all. The evacuees who came here during the war.'
Percy, only just able to hear her even though he bent near on one knee, said: 'Who murdered them, miss?'
Lili looked from one man to the other, the torch held low so its glare would not blind her again.
'The—the guardian—he killed them,' she stammered. 'The man called Augustus Cribben. I recognized him from the photograph Eve showed me. He killed them all except for the one who ran away.'
Percy was confounded, wondering how this woman—this girl, really—could know the children's fate when it was so long ago.
'He—he strangled them,' Lili went on, her eyes staring into the rain. 'He broke the necks of the smaller ones. I sensed it. I saw him do it.'
Gabe glanced at Percy. 'Lili's supposed to be psychic,' he hurriedly explained. He suddenly remembered the other car, the Mondeo parked in front of her Citroën. 'Is someone else in the house?' he asked urgently. 'Is someone threatening my family?'
'Yes!' she exclaimed, looking directly into Gabe's eyes. 'The boy named Maurice Stafford. I mean the man—the man who now calls himself Pyke. Oh God, you've got to help them before it's too late. He's going to harm them, I'm sure—'
But Gabe was already sprinting towards Crickley Hall.
75: THE SACRIFICE
The front door was shut but unlocked.
Gabe burst through, sending the heavy nail-studded door crashing back against the wall. Rain gusted in with the wind behind him as he came to a startled, skidding halt.
A great darkness, like a black fog, spread across the ceiling, wispy grey tendrils of it drifting down from the mass. It almost covered the iron chandelier, dimming its already weak lights so that the whole room was gloomy with shadows. With it, or from it, there came a foul fetid smell, an odour like raw sewage, that clogged the nose and throat. He nearly retched with the stench. A different kind of coldness settled over his body like a tight silk shroud.
A shrill cry from Cally brought him back to his senses. She was standing next to her mother halfway up the hall's broad staircase. Eve was sitting on a stair, a hand up to her lowered head, Cally's arm round her shoulders. Dark liquid oozed through Eve's fingers, blood from a cut in her head.
'Daddy, the nasty man hit Mummy!' Cally's face was screwed up as if she were about to break into tears.
He ran across the hall, splashing through large puddles without questioning how or why they were there, his only thoughts for his wife and daughter. Loren's absence had not hit him yet. He bounded up the stairs.
Eve heard him coming and looked down at him. The panic on her face shook him.
She extended her bloodied hand as if to ward him off. 'No!' she screeched. 'Loren, help Loren!'
Gabe dropped to his knees on a lower step so that his face was level with hers. 'Eve, what is it? Where is Loren?'
'He's taken her to the cellar! The well!'
He took her by the shoulders. 'Who has? What're you talking about, Eve?'
'Pyke! He came back. He's mad, Gabe! He's going to kill her!'
Gabe was confused, astonished. But he did not waste another moment. He hurtled back down the stairs, taking two at a time and leaping the last few into the hall. All kinds of dreads ran with him. Loren! Pyke! Why the hell would Pyke—no time to think, he was at the open cellar door.
He went through, hardly slowing, descending the creaky cellar steps in a rush, his hands brushing the rough walls on either side for balance, almost stumbling near the bottom but catching himself before he could fall.
Emerging into the cavernous basement room, he took it all in in an instant: the roaring of the underground river whose sound was amplified by the circular wall of the shaft and then further enhanced by the cellar's stone walls, the dank earthy smell of the poorly lit chamber—the two figures, Pyke and Loren, standing by the lip of the old well.
Loren was struggling, her back to Pyke, his big hand round her neck, pushing her head and shoulders forward so that she was forced to look into the deep well. She was crying hysterically.
With no interest in conversation—reasons why, warnings, pleadings, humouring the bastard—and barely breaking stride, Gabe launched himself at the man threatening his daughter.
Although Pyke had heard the footsteps coming down the stairs, he had not expected such a swift reaction, and he involuntarily pulled away in surprise, bringing the girl back from the edge with him. He attempted to raise the walking stick he held in his other hand to meet the attack, but the engineer was hurtling in to him before he had a chance to use it.
All three of them went to the floor, Pyke uttering a cry at the impact, but Gabe rolled over in the dirt and dust, coming up on one knee to face his adversary again. Loren was lying on one side, a hand grasping the edge of the low wall; her hysteria had abruptly stopped.